What do you think of people making memes/jokes about the recent Titan tragedy?
I mean like even if someone is for example criminal or scumbag they are still human and hoping for someone to die or make jokes of someone's loss of life isn't right. Or does someone think it is justified? I think it's morally wrong.
I came here just to get a measure of how toxic the Lemmy community was going to be and I love that you didn’t disappoint. This is probably the most refreshing dispute I’ve read in a while. Even the most extreme on either side, are mostly speaking their opinions without directing hate at the others contributing to the conversation. Thank you for this!
I think it's risky if you live in the UK. We have a law called the Communications Act which has broad powers banning posting of anything which is 'grossly offensive'. It's entirely up to a court to decide what is 'grossly offensive' on a case-by-case basis.
It's fine. We all deal with tragedy in different ways. If my death makes people laugh, I would approve...just please make it far, fast, fast from tomorrow!
When it comes to tragedies, the number of fucks I give for the victims follows a simple formula.
I start with a billion fucks. Then I subtract the combined net worth of the people affected by the tragedy. The result is how many fucks I give about their tragedy.
For this one, I'm at about negative three billion fucks.
Making jokes is how people cope with tragic events.
This is why there is the on-going debate, that no topic should ever be unavailable to joke about.
I remember that the very same day that Princess Diana died, people were saying "Died in anasty accident" and that was before the days of the internet being popular, that was a joke that spread around the country by text message.
It's dark comedy for a tragically comic situation.
By definition, I'd say all of the jokes are in very poor taste, which is what makes them so funny. The specifics of this particular tragedy practically call out for grim comedy: Safety shmafety, Logitech, Blink 182 getting sucked into the spotlight, etc.
I do think that all the chatter about the disaster has underscored some critically important points:
Billionaires are just as stupid as everyone else. They are not exceptional people in any way.
If you're not a deep sea oceanography expert of any sort, you should keep your undersea adventures to much shallower waters.
"Hey Personal Assistant, can you give me the dirt sheet on this submarine company? I'm thinking of visiting the Titanic." Would have saved lives. Those tickets to an undersea adventure were a quarter of a million dollars per seat. I've done better due diligence buying a ukulele online than these halfwits.
I've done it myself, so I clearly have no problem with it myself. Gallows humor is in poor taste, but billionaires don't give a damn about random schlubs like myself, so that indifference is reciprocated.
Plus... plus. It was fucking stupid to take a tiny submarine hundreds of feet underwater to explore a 100 year old sunken relic. The tragedy of the Titanic is well documented! If you want to see it up close, we have remotely controlled drones with cameras for that! Or just watch a damn documentary on the History Channel, on those rare moments when they SHOW history on the History Channel. The sub situation just smacks of senseless, self-destructive hedonism. It's like getting a raccoon for a pet, then lamenting that your new pet just crawled into your child's crib and snacked on her face for a while. Yes. It's a wild animal. This could easily have been anticipated and prevented if you just used some common sense.
Thank you for caring about safety! I agree with you. I'll add my two cents about Rush: I find it interesting that he must have believed it was safe. I think I take solace that he died doing this, believing his own bullshit. I'd hate to think of him living his life when he sent others knowingly to their grave. If anyone deserved to suffer the consequences of his decisions, it is him.
Honestly, I just don't care. You don't become a billionaire ethically, and they happened to spend their riches on something so incredibly stupid, when others around the world are suffering because of their existence.
Like yes it's sad for their families and such... But the conversation has revolved around this submarine instead of focusing on, I don't know, that migrant ship that capsized and killed like 500 people.
More so as >300 out of those 500 are believed to be Pakistani nationals trying to flee the worst economic crisis their country has seen in decades while the son of a Pakistani businessman felt compelled to splurge that kind of money on a bonding exercise.
I like the memes. That situation is just so absurd all the way through.
It probably also helps that I don't really have any sympathy for anyone that passed away in that sub. Don't get me wrong: I wish nobody death, but they kinda did that to themselves. They're lucky that they died during the implosion and not by suffocation.
I don’t mind them at all, I even laughed at one and shared it privately. But that’s not because I think they deserved it, or anything similar (I did even defend the rescue efforts on lemmy). I simply don’t hold anything sacrosanct.
I think jokes and empathy can be somewhat orthogonal. In fact, I think any stable society/org requires a court jester. But dang, the amount of dehumanization, lack of empathy, and sometimes joy, I see is really scary. There are some angry, empty, people on the internet, that I hope to never meet in real life.
I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, the memes (at least the ones I've seen) were heavily influenced by the article in The Atlantic a week ago about orcas attacking yachts, tapping into the justified vein of resentment against out-of-touch billionaires - a label which can apply to three of those on board the Titan. The fact that these people paid $250,000 each to go down and sit near a shipwreck that they couldn't see (portholes would be a dangerous pressure-point) instead of using that money to actually benefit humanity in a time of widespread hardship is questionable at best - and what does the company they gave this money to spend those millions of dollars on? Obviously not quality-controlled safety tests.
On the other hand, there is the human dimension of the teenage son who was terrified about the trip and only went as a Father's Day bonding experience with his rich dad, or the French naval expert who was genuinely knowledgeable about the Titanic and had recovered many artifacts from the wreck over his life, which represents a genuine loss of expertise.
So I smile when I see the pic of orcas banging pans and saying "billionaires, it's safe to dive now!" But I don't go out of my way to find those memes or exult over the deaths.
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